Alumnus Fights Global Hunger

JESUS GARCIA ’99 distinctly remembers a
trip through the Mali Province in northern Guinea, West Africa where he
fell asleep despite the heat and bumpy road. When he awoke, the
smoothness of the road was surprising. Boulders had been cleared,
granite had been crushed, bricks had been intricately placed.

The changes, Garcia realized, were evidence of the improvements
made through the World Food Program, the food aid branch of the United
Nations. As the head of the WFP’s sub-office in Middle Guinea, Garcia
knows that global food aid is viewed by some as wasteful and
ineffective, but he can see the impact it has on communities.

Seeing such progress validates Garcia’s decision to join WFP six
years ago.

“I joined WFP because I had a desire to do something meaningful and
to help others,” Garcia said. “WFP’s efforts target the most
vulnerable—children under 5, girls, women, the elderly, and people
living with HIV. I was particularly drawn by this mission.”

Garcia oversees three WFP activities: school feeding, assistance to
rural development initiatives, and support to health and nutrition. All
are tied to fighting hunger and promoting food security, though the
specific approach for each program differs. Some projects provide direct
food aid while others provide local improvements, such as the improved
road, that are tied to food assistance.

Much of Garcia’s job involves representing WFP to others. He
relates the group’s mission to authorities and partners, ensures staff
members and operations are safe, and works with government
representatives of the education, agriculture, public health, and
transport ministries (with the hope of addressing problems in those
sectors). He also trains and guides the sub-office team.

The days are long and weekend work is often involved. “I’m always
on call,” he said. Yet Garcia believes passionately in his work: “A lot
of people would go hungry if it weren’t for WFP assistance.”

The reminders of that are all around Garcia. The area he visited
that hot day was like many others in Guinea—inaccessible, lacking in
basic amenities such as running water, electricity, a health center, and
suffering from a high malnutrition rate. It is also populated by the
very young and the very old, and the population in between is
overwhelmingly female because teenage boys and men have left to find
work.

“The old, invalid, women and children left behind survive on
subsistence farming and remittances from their émigré sons, fathers, and
husbands,” Garcia said. “These and many other factors make the members
of this community vulnerable and food insecure, and justify, in my
opinion, food aid. Yet that community is also proof of how food aid can
be used to promote development.”